Weis won't hand over police list

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Mayor Richard Daley on Wednesday defended Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis' defiance of a federal order to turn over a list of police officers with multiple citizen complaints.

The department was ordered in December by Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez to submit a "repeater list" of officers who have accumulated at least five complaints since 2002. The action came as part of a lawsuit alleging that an off-duty police detective beat two children at a Beverly playground in 2007. The list would be made available only to attorneys and not released publicly, the order said.

But Weis declined to provide the list before Friday's deadline, contending that naming the officers would threaten their safety and hurt department morale.

Flint Taylor, the attorney seeking the records, called for Weis to be fired, saying his refusal to produce the list was "lawless behavior" out of step with his predecessors.

"It's a move to placate the union, to placate the repeater cops -- the beater cops -- and it is antithetical to any notion that Jody Weis is a reformer," Taylor said.

But Daley said many of the complaints against officers were "unfounded and meritless" and any release would cause unfair scrutiny of innocent police officers.